The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Minnesota, and within Rice County, and especially in the city of Beaver Creek people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Beaver Creek. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Beaver Creek is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, Ratatouilli and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Beaver Creek being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans and The Duke of Weselton.
The studio's catalog of cartoons are among Disney's most notable assets and the stars of its animated shorts—Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto—have gone on to become recognizable figures in Beaver Creek popular culture.
Walt Disney Animation Studios continues to produce animated features using both hand-drawn and computer generated imagery techniques. Their 54th feature, Big Hero 6, is currently in production and set for release on November 7, 2014.
Vintage Disney Cartoons in the 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Beaver Creek and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, premiered in 1929 with The Skeleton Dance. Each Silly Symphony was a one-shot cartoon centered around music or a particular theme.
Silly Symphonies
In 1932 the Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees, the first full-color cartoon was released. Flowers and Trees was a major success so all the Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. The 1933 Three Little Pigs with character of The Big Bad Wolf and Fiddler Pig became a big box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Beaver Creek residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Considerable training and development went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Beaver Creek - but we're not sure.
What Beaver Creek parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite . It was an experimental cartoon created to accompanying an orchestral arrangement. Fantasia also brought about the development of the Fantasound system which was used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack to the delight of Beaver Creek viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Beaver Creek and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.
Also in the 1940s, Walt Disney released shorts which included Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The studio also produced two features, Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1948), which were a combination of animated and live-action footage. Shorts production continued during this period as well, with Donald and Pluto cartoons being the main output accompanied by cartoons starring Mickey Mouse, Figaro and in the 1950s, Chip 'n Dale and Humphrey the Bear.
Walt Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Beaver Creek movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The King of Hearts. Parents in Beaver Creek also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Beaver Creek could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Aunt Sarah.
